On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

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Experience which, if assimilated, would involve a change in the organization of self, tends to be resisted through denial or distortion of symbolism" (Rogers, 1951). If the content or presentation of a course is inconsistent with preconceived information, the student will learn if they are open to varying concepts. Being open to concepts that vary from one's own is vital to learning. Therefore, gently encouraging open-mindedness is helpful in engaging the student in learning. Also, it is important, for this reason, that new information be relevant and related to existing experience. Two primary sources that influence our self-concept are childhood experiences and evaluation by others. Rogers described the concepts of congruence and incongruence as important in his theory. In proposition #6, he refers to the actualizing tendency. At the same time, he recognized the need for positive regard. In a fully congruent person, realizing their potential is not at the expense of experiencing positive regard. They are able to lead authentic and genuine lives. Incongruent individuals, in their pursuit of positive regard, lead lives that include falsity and do not realize their potential. Conditions put on them by those around them make it necessary for them to forgo their genuine, authentic lives to meet with others' approval. They live lives that are not true to themselves.

In therapy the individual learns to recognise and express his feelings as his own feelings, not as a fact about another person. Thus, to say to one’s spouse ‘what you are doing is all wrong.” is likely to lead only to debate. But to say ‘I feel very much annoyed by you are are doing,” is to state one fact about the speaker’s feelings, a fact that no one can deny. IT no longer is an accusation about another, but a feeling which exists in oneself. ‘You are to blame for my feelings of inadequacy,” is a debatable point, but ‘I feel inadequate when you do thus and so’ simply contributes a real fact about the relationship.” Under certain conditions, involving primarily complete absence of threat to the self structure, experiences inconsistent with it may be perceived and examined, and the structure of self revised to assimilate and include such experiences. Rogers continued teaching at the University of Wisconsin until 1963, when he became a resident at the new Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI) in La Jolla, California. Rogers left the WBSI to help found the Center for Studies of the Person in 1968. His later books include Carl Rogers on Personal Power (1977) and Freedom to Learn for the '80s (1983). He remained a La Jolla resident for the rest of his life, doing therapy, giving speeches and writing. Rogers was born on January 8, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His father, Walter A. Rogers, was a civil engineer, a Congregationalist by denomination. His mother, Julia M. Cushing, [5] [6] was a homemaker and devout Baptist. Carl was the fourth of their six children. [7]My copy of Carl R. Rogers’ On Becoming a Person has taken a good battering over several years of training to become a qualified counsellor. We spent a lot of time in class discussing empathy and what it actually looks like. This seems like a perfect description to me. Feelings and Opinions are Not Facts Because only in the first case the psychotherapist truly believes that the person sitting next to him is a person, someone in the process of becoming something, and not someone whose existence is already fixed. He/she needs to see you as someone in the process of becoming, and not as a finished product; in that way, only he can help you: not by dealing with your past problems, but by dealing with the possibilities that lie in your future; and they are all but endless. The Laws of Human Nature: Rogers’ Shift

At one place in the book, Rogers sums up most of his ideas about how a good consultant/client relationship looks like and what it does “into one statement.”Abraham Maslow termed Rogers’ approach humanism, the ‘third force’ in psychology (psychoanalysis being the first, and behaviourism the second). Michael Martin (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge University Press. p. 310. ISBN 9780521842709. "Among celebrity atheists with much biographical data, we find leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. We could provide a long list, including...Carl R. Rogers..." Like a flower that will grow to its full potential if the conditions are right, but which is constrained by its environment, so people will flourish and reach their potential if their environment is good enough. Before Rogers's death, he and Harold Lyon began a book, On Becoming an Effective Teacher—Person-centered Teaching, Psychology, Philosophy, and Dialogues with Carl R. Rogers and Harold Lyon, that Lyon and Reinhard Tausch completed and published in 2013. It contains Rogers's last unpublished writings on person-centered teaching. [32] Rogers had the following five hypotheses regarding learner-centered education:

Carl Rogers’ self-concept is a central theme in his humanistic theory of psychology. It encompasses an individual’s self-image (how they see themselves), self-esteem (how much value they place on themselves), and ideal self (the person they aspire to be). Because it’s easier for us to find excuses than to find ways; even though the former brings frustration, it is much more comfortable than the latter which always comes with a bit of fear. Søren Kierkegaard

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In other words, when we talk about person-centred counselling being non-judgemental, we’re not just talking about being non-critical. Positive judgements can have just as much of a detrimental impact on the therapeutic process. Life Lessons and Words of Wisdom To sense the client’s private world as if it were your own, but without ever losing the “as if” quality — this is empathy, and this seems essential to therapy. To sense the client’s anger, fear, or confusion as if were your own, yet without your own anger, fear, or confusion getting bound up in it, is the condition we are endeavouring to describe.” In the development of the self-concept, he saw conditional and unconditional positive regard as key. Those raised in an environment of unconditional positive regard have the opportunity to fully actualize themselves. Those raised in an environment of conditional positive regard feel worthy only if they match conditions (what Rogers describes as conditions of worth) that others have laid down for them. Now, Sartre’s ideas were themselves inspired by the work of a great 19 th-century Danish philosopher with a complicated name, Søren Kierkegaard. Central to Rogers’ personality theory is the notion of self or self-concept. This is “the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself.”